Chinese education lobbyists, whose meeting last night at the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall in Kuala Lumpur was blocked by the police, today said that they would not apply for a police permit.

The group, following legal advice, decided against applying for the permit to meet as this would set a bad precedent.

Deputy chairman of the United Chinese Schools Committees' Association, or Dong Zong, Dr Yap Sin Tian said the meeting last night was a 'private affair' and not open to public.

"After some discussion, we decided not to apply for a permit because this is an internal meeting," Yap told malaysiakini today.

The meeting was called by Dong Zong, which is the umbrella body of Chinese schools' board of governors, to discuss matters pertaining to national Chinese primary schools and vision schools and the status of the Chee Wen primary school in Subang Jaya.

The group also wanted to get the endorsement from the Chinese community to lobby the government to convert the completed vision school compound in Subang Jaya to Chee Wen school instead.

About 300 people mostly from Chinese education groups and representatives from the Subang Jaya residential areas turned up for the meeting but were shocked by the presence of police on the premise.

Meeting postponed

About 20 police personnel, including several riot police, led by Dang Wangi police chief Mohd Bakri Zinin, barred everyone from entering the meeting hall on the grounds that the organisers did not have a permit. The meeting was later called off.

About 10 members of several Chinese education groups and lawyers held an hour-long meeting at the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall, or SCAH, this afternoon.

"In the past, we have held many similar meetings without having to apply for a permit," said lawyer Ser Choon Ing after the meeting today.

Ser, who is also the SCAH civil rights committee chairman, said yesterday's meeting was for invited guests only.

However, he conceded that the meeting was advertised in a number of Chinese-language newspapers.

"Even if we advertised, the meeting is limited to invited people only," he said, adding that it was normal practice for Chinese organisations to announce their meetings in the media because sending notices to members alone is not sufficient.

Letter of complaint

Meanwhile, Yap's legal adviser, Ngeow Yin Ngee, who was also at the meeting today, advised the lobby group to write a letter of complaint to Inspector-General of Police Norian Mai on the matter.

According to Ngeow, the police did not follow proper procedures when they blocked the meeting last night.

He said the police did not have the right to stop the meeting that has yet to start.

Ngeow added that the police should at least allow the meeting to proceed for several minutes before deciding whether it had violated the Police Act.

According to section 27A of the Police Act, any police officer can order individuals involved in an indoor gathering to disperse if the activity is deemed to be prejudicial to national security or to incite public disturbance.

Lawyer Ser alleged that the police in charge yesterday, Mohd Bakri, was rude and did not even cite section 27 when dispersing the crowd.